The research under implementation on the contributions of the cultural industries to the Zimbabwean economy is at the data compilation stage. The Culture Fund partnered with the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) to conduct a statistical survey of cultural industries in Harare and major surrounding areas of Chitungwiza, Norton, Ruwa and Epworth earlier in 2012, with funding from the UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity.
It is anticipated that a stakeholder’s workshop disseminating findings to stakeholders will take place during the first quarter of 2013. The research has gone through various stages including a stakeholders’ workshop where the project was launched in May 2012, training of trainers, training of enumerators as well as field work collecting data from arts and culture stakeholders that took place in October 2012.
This research is a follow up to the seminal Baseline Survey which was conducted on cultural industries in 2009 by the Culture Fund. The survey observed that one of the challenges facing Zimbabwean cultural industries is that they have not been well researched. The baseline survey observed that the culture sector in Zimbabwe has immense potential to contribute to livelihoods and the national income.
There have been observations that there are virtually no meaningful comparative or historical statistics relating to economic outputs in the Creative Economy in Zimbabwe (output and production, turnover, employment, trade and exports, imports, investment). There is de facto no effective regulatory system in relation to the ’Creative Economy’ (wages, employment conditions, investment and tax, ’standards’, definitions and so on).
It is hoped that the current research will fill in longstanding gaps on the lack of data and statistics on the culture sector in Zimbabwe.
This project is unprecedented and it is anticipated will go a long way in boosting advocacy towards the prioritisation of the Zimbabwean cultural industries by policy makers and investors. The research is coming at a time when globally there is an emerging importance around assessing the contribution of culture to the economy. It has become crucial for institutions to produce reliable cultural data. The research was made possible through support from the UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity.